USA > New York > Steuben County > Bath > The official records of the centennial celebration, Bath, Steuben County, New York, June 4, 6, and 7, 1893 > Part 25
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There was a generous scholarship, too, in Bath. I recall Dr. Francis More, an accomplished scholar and gentleman, who taught here a gram- mar school, and who left Bath to take part in the struggle of Texas for inde- pendence. His successor for a brief period was a Mr. Fitch-but who that
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ever saw Ralph K. Finch, who followed soon after, as he sat upon his schoolroom stage or dais and presided over the Classical School from early in the thirties, nearly or quite a whole decade, will ever forget him? Mr. Finch was a graduate of Dartmouth, a ripe scholar, and a teacher who magnified his profession. . In his youth or early manhood he had made some voyages, the reminiscences of which he liked to recite on Wednesday afternoons to the school. He was the type of an English master, and as those were the days of heroic discipline, I can testify from a personal ex- perience, the memory of which, after the stress of many years, has not yet become indistinct, that no English pedagogue ever more conscientious- ly and vigorously applied the ferule. I do not know whether he com- manded the affection of his scholars, but he certainly did their respect, and laid the foundation of much excellent scholarship. Mr. Finch was the first County Superintendent of Common Schools, and gave up for that office his own private school. He was accidentally drowned in the river about the year 1844 or 1845. After Master Finch's retirement the village was never long without a good private school, until the establishment of the Haverling Union School, upon a scale so liberal that its function seemed no longer required. I remember well an amiable young teacher named Herkimer ; Curtis C. Messerve, a graduate of Dartmouth or Bow- doin, a strapping son of New England, who had the power of inspiring his scholars with some of his own enthusiasm for learning ; James F. Cham- berlain, a graduate of Union, a conscientious and dignified man, and a dis- ciplinarian to the very tips of his and the boys' fingers ; and Isaac H. Hill, the last of my schoolmasters, also a good scholar and a most amiable gen- tleman. I do not know if he be living to-day, but living or dead I shall ever remember him with affection.
The village, too, had many ripe scholars; among the earlier ones I recall David McMaster, and the Rev. Isaac W. Platt, Edward Howell and Robert L. Underhill ; the last two were not college bred, but no one could question the right of either to the title of scholar.
As my memory recalls one by one these men and scenes, the tempta- tion to dwell upon them more fully is almost irresistible. Form after form among the lads with whom I went to school rises before me, but the time forbids even the mention of their names, and yet there are a few that I cannot pass by. There was Edward Shannon. He was the son of Robert Shannon, a venerable Irish gentleman, who in my youth owned and occu- pied the old Springfield farm. He was father of the late Mrs. Bartholo- mew Wilkes, so well known by all the old residents here. Edward was his youngest son. Though many years my senior, my recollection of him is so vivid that I am sure I am not mistaken in describing him as a young man of brilliant talents and attractive character. Master Finch had
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great pride in him, and to the entire school he was a young hero-a marvel of literary accomplishments.
He read law, but had hardly entered upon the practice of his profes- sion in Bath during the last year of the Mexican War, when his adventur- ous spirit led him to take the captaincy of a company of soldiers in what was known as Stevenson's regiment. The company was raised here and in this vicinity. The regiment was intended for service in California, and embarked for that then far distant country in the fall of 1846, arriving there in March, 1847, but though the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo was not made until more than a year afterward, the regiment saw but little, if any, more than garrison service. With it went DeWitt Clinton French, Calvin Emerson and that manly, generous-hearted young man, Elijah Martin Smith, and others of the Bath boys. They all remained in Cali- fornia. Shannon entered upon the practice of his profession there, and his name will live in its history as the mover in the convention which formed the first constitution of that State of the clause which forever for- bade in all its borders slavery or involuntary servitude, except for crime. He died of cholera in October, 1850, at Sacramento, and was buried there by the side of Robert Campbell Rogers, my elder brother, whom he had tenderly cared for in his last illness a few days before his own decease.
At Finch's school in the old Brick Block (there was but one brick block in those days), at a little side seat on the platform, sat the best boy in the school, James Platt. He occupied that conspicuous seat because he was a model scholar and an example to all the room. A lad younger, and much smaller, sat by his side. If I were to say that the younger pupil held this place partly because of the good influence exerted over him by Platt, and partly because Master Finch desired to have the small boy within close inspection and easy reach, no violence would be done to the truth of his- tory. Never was the saying that the boy is the father to the man better exemplified than in the case of James M. Platt. Studious, thorough, faithful, respectful, orderly, no teacher ever had occasion to reprove him. With his fellows, too, he was as much a favorite as he was with the mas- ters. Generous, accommodating, unpretending, merry ; we all loved him. His manhood was what his boyhood promised ; it could not have been more or better.
When after many years of absence from his boyhood's home the old church called him to the pulpit which his revered father formerly occu- pied, it seemed as if every condition of fitness had been most happily an- swered. When the pastorate upon which he then entered, with all the devotion of a sincere and sympathetic nature, was closed by death, Guy McMaster, the friend of all others who knew him best, wrote these words :
" On the morning of the second Sunday of March, the Rev. James M. Platt, D. D., pastor of the Presbyterian church in this village, after
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performing the public ministrations of his office before the congregation, ' closed the book,' commended his people to the Divine love, and departed from the house of God on earth to enter, after a few days of suffering, the mansions of the Majesty on High, in sure expectation of that eternity of service which, to his mind, was the only conceivable form of an eternity of rest.
" He was but fifty-seven years of age. The powers of his intellect had, perhaps, reached their full development; but the enriching influences of study, of experience, of inward communion with his Lord and Master, combined, year by year and day by day, to build him up to ever broader and higher spiritual proportions. Truly, in the words of a brother in the sacred ministry, uttered over his coffin as it rested at the pulpit steps on the passage from the home to the tomb, here was 'a noble man of God.' That sums it all up. The three words nobleness, manliness, godliness, need but a fourth, loveliness, to build all sides of a character ' which stood four- square to all the winds that blew.'"
Probably the most brilliant man the county ever produced was Guy Humphreys McMaster. From his earliest years he was easily foremost. Here was no other such mind-clear, strong, logical, as true as the un- swerving scales of justice. What store of brilliant fancy, what power of imagination, what wide grasp of knowledge were his ; and beneath a cold and shy exterior what unfeigned and all-embracing sympathy. I dare not trust myself to speak of him as I would, for, from our earliest years, he was my most intimate and best-beloved friend. Green be the turf above him !
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It is unquestionable that Captain Williamson's village at an early day bore the reputation of a somewhat unruly and riotous character. The Virginia and Maryland gentlemen, who, attracted by Williamson's free- handed and generous methods, came here with many slaves, probably found it none too straight-laced for their own liberal views of social life.
McMaster says, "It has often been flung in our faces as a reproach that when the first missionary visited Bath on a Sunday morning he found a multitude assembled on the public square in three distinct groups. On one side the people were gambling, on another they were witnessing a bat- tle between two bulls, and on the third a fight between two bullies. We are happy to say that the truth of this rascally old tradition is more than doubtful. Aside from the manifest improbability that men would play cards while bulls were fighting, or that bulls would be trumps while men were fighting, the evidence adduced in support of the legend is vague and malicious." So far McMaster. I have quoted the passage to give point to a reminiscence of my own.
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There must have been a strong infusion of staid and decorous Puritan- ism in the early village or the labors of the Rev. John Niles, hired in 1807 to divide his time equally in missionary work between Bath and Pratts- burgh, and of the Rev. David Higgins and the Rev. Isaac Watts Platt, his successors, pastors of the Presbyterian church in Bath, must have been specially prospered, for the village, as I first remember it, would do no dis- credit to a staid New England community. About the stage barns, there were, naturally, some boisterous doings, and now and then in other places through the village was somebody who gave little heed to the sacred char- acter of the day, but the observance of the Sabbath was general and faith- ful. The churches were well attended, and the pulpits provided strong meat for the listening congregations. I have in my mind now a scene which would greatly surprise my young hearers. At the corner of the Square, near the present Nichols House, I see a half dozen or so of boys, most of whose parents belonged to the Presbyterian church, playing ball on a fine spring Saturday afternoon. There were the McMaster boys and Robert Leland, the younger Platts, the Rogers boys, and perhaps others. It seems to me that I was behind the bat, when suddenly a large, impres- sive looking man stalked across the ball-ground. It was the Rev. Mr. Platt going to the school-room to catechize the boys in the Westminster Confession. It would hardly be true to say that it was a gleeful crowd who followed the pastor ; but the game of ball was at an end and there were no absentees from the Catechism lesson.
I have already spoken of Judge Edwards. Let me sketch in a few words his personal appearance, for, though I was not more than seven years old at his decease, I believe I am not mistaken in thinking him one of the most notable men who ever filled judicial station in this county. He was about six feet in height, spare, of dark eyes and complexion. His daughter, Mrs. Dudley, greatly resembled him. He dressed like a gentle- man of the old school, in a sober suit of brown, always wearing a large white cravat without collar, and as he walked carrying his right hand thrust into his vest across his breast. No other human being has ever seemed to me so much like George Washington-so grave and so awful. His monument in the old burying ground-the first effort in the county up to that time, I think, toward anything more imposing than the white marble or gray sandstone slab-shows the estimate in which this just judge and good man was held by his fellow lawyers. The late David Mc- Master, who married his eldest daughter, and whom you all so well re- member, was a man and a judge of similar type-sedate, modest, firm, and as' true to duty as the needle to the pole.
A pious affection has preserved to this day the old law office of Edward and William Howell. I have said that no more villages like Bath of the ante-railroad day could ever again appear. Imagine, if you can, two men
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like those Howell brothers in any Western village or city at the present day. But in Bath during the first half of this century they were not wholly misplaced. They were simply, in stately dignity, in formal but sincere courtesy, in unaffected homage to learning, gentlemen of the old school, indeed ; the finest product of an unhurried and thoughtful period which was passing away. The elder brother was at the head of the Steu- ben Bar-and a very respectable body it was-when I first remember him. He held the place for many years until physical infirmity compelled him gradually to yield the primacy to younger men. William Howell never entered Court, but was the model of a painstaking and faithful attorney and conveyancer.
Among the institutions belonging to the period of which I speak, but which has passed with it, never to return, is what I might call the Country Store Club. There was some opportunity for social conversation, for in- terchange of news and ideas, at the village inns-the Eagle Tavern and the Clinton House. There, a citizen sociably inclined, might meet, per- chance, by the wood fire in the public sitting room an interesting traveler sojourning for the night, or two or three of his fellow townsmen, and under the inspiration of the last Albany Evening Journal or Argus have a political tilt that helped to relieve the tedium of the long evening. But the moral atmosphere of the village forbade much visiting so near the bar- rooms, and grave citizens with boys to bring up felt that precept and prac- tice would harmonize better if the elders sought their social intercourse somewhere else. So the Country Store Club was a natural evolution. When the nights grew long and it was comfortable to gather about the box stove, without notice to members from Dean or Secretary, the nightly sessions of the club began. They were continued through the winter and spring until the lengthening days and warm weather made protracted sidewalk-intercourse pleasant. There were no initiation fees or dues, no constitution or by-laws, no entertainment of meat or drink, no proposal of members. The club was free to all, and in one evening you might some- times meet a roving member in all the symposiums. When the night came and with it the mails, and the oil lamps were lighted, the members came drifting in until half a dozen or more filled the chairs and the more convenient places on the counters, and remained until nine o'clock, when the village curfew rang from the steeple of the old Presbyterian church, and immediately along the little street there was a clang of bars and clos- ing shutters and the club separated for the night. Through the evening a little trade over the counter went on, adding a not unpleasant variety to the interest of the habitues, and giving to the principal debaters of the evening temporary rest and refreshment for the discussion that had not yet been fought to a finish. There were several of these clubs on Liberty Street. Those that I remember best held their nightly convocations-one
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at the store of Reuben Robie, another at that of Dr. Rogers, and a third at the store of George S. Ellas. This last named was rather a younger body than the others. George Ellas himself was a man of much wit and read- ing, as well as business thrift and energy, and conversation never lan- guished when he was present. But the men who gathered at the stores of Reuben Robie and Dr. Rogers were of graver and more sedate character. At Robie's the talk was chiefly of the old settlers, of politics and busi- ness, of farming, of the crops and the freshets, of the frosts and the droughts. At the Rogers symposium the debate took wider range. Dr. Higgins was often there, especially when the constitutional rights of the States were under discussion. Between his brown wig and the top of his hat, gently cushioned by his red bandana, he always carried a small copy of the Constitution of the United States. No man could advance wild views upon the Constitution in the Doctor's presence, with impunity. The appeal was always and at once to the text as written by the fathers.
How well I remember the face and form of George Huntington, worshiper of Thomas Jefferson, ex-State Senator and afterwards Justice of the Peace, as, tramping up and down in the ecstasy and fervor of debate, he denounced Nicholas Biddle and the " rascally banks," or defended with hot eloquence the doctrine of Universal Salvation against the assaults of his relentless Calvinistic opponents ! William Hamilton, grave and silent as an Iroquois chief, sat by with only an occasional grunt of assent or dis- sent. James May often came in from his farm and was a good listener. Uncle Eli Bidwell, the oldest blacksmith in the village, badly bent from the shoeing of horses and oxen, but still vigorous, sat by ruminant, always preferring as a seat the mild end of a nail keg. Norman Daniels, the big carpenter, often filled a place on the counter. Once in a while one of the village pastors or Edward Howell dropped in and gave the talk a more elevated tone than usual, and now and then Lazarus H. Reade, after finishing the newspaper at the "Eagle" and exhausting the combative powers of such antagonist as he might find there, dropped in to give a final fillip of interest to the proceedings of the evening by his brilliant conversational audacities. Now and then-oh, rare delight !- the conver- sation turned upon the early time,-the wolves that invaded the sheep- fold, the panthers that lurked in the tree tops and dropped upon the trav- eler with unpleasant unexpectedness, the bears that sought out the prom- ising pigs, the deer the farmer found browsing in his little wheat field in the early dawn, and that most interesting and fearsome of all reptiles since the fall of our first parents-the rattlesnake. On such an evening there was general amity, and Squire Hamilton took an extra charge in his long white clay pipe.
There was always perfect decorum. No matter how heated the debate might be, it was by self-respecting citizens, and never violated the
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conditions that made it proper to be heard by the little lads who sat on the counter listening with eyes and ears. Men in those days studied the Constitution, and discussed political topics with each other seriously ; more seriously, I think, than now, when the business seems to have been turned over to the daily papers. Sometimes I am inclined, also, to think the same or something worse has been done with their patriotism; and the agnos- ticism of the time has driven out religious debate.
To the early settlement of Bath two things lent a picturesqueness that was peculiar. The first was the personality of Captain Williamson, the other the immigration hither of Southern gentlemen with their slaves. My earliest memory recalls a succession of negro houses filling all the space between the old village graveyard and the forks of the road above, and many more, besides the house of Simon Watkins, between that point and the Belfast Mills. On the plains between Gallows Hill and Epaphras Bull's were the little clearings of 'Zekle and Cato Thompson ; and John Thomas, chief hog killer to the village, adorned upper St. Patrick's Street. Among the gray-haired colored people were King and Sam and Simon Watkins, George Alexander, Cooper, Uncle Billy Tolliver, Ned Tompkins, Juba, Scipio Africanus Johnson and Aaron Butcher, the barber, who, tra- dition said, shaved Governor Clinton and assured him that "the beard was sure to come if the handle of the razor did not break." And there were Aunt Nancy and Mammy, Minty, and Julia, and Jinny Alexander and many others whose names I do not recall. Edward Dorsey and Stephen Adams were in their early prime. I mention their names especially be- cause they were men of high personal character, a credit to any race. These freed men and women and their decendant were, for the most part, of course, a poor and humble people but with all the gentle and winsome qualities of the race. They had a pastor in those days, the Rev. John Tappan, a very respectable man, who had but a slight infusion of negro blood in his veins; and at the " White School House" they had the advan- tages of the common school. Few of them accumulated any property, though they had reasonable opportunity to do so, and their numbers have gradually decreased. Of what value, as an object lesson, the more than sixty years' history of the freed colored people in Bath may be is an inter- esting subject for examination and discussion, but can hardly be entered upon here. * * * *
But I must pass on now from these memories of the early time.
When the New York & Erie locomotive came rushing west, with its Cyclopean eye looking for the Great Lakes, and found the way to them through the Tioga and Canisteo valleys, it did not require a prophet's vision to foresee that the old Shire-Town would have to fight for its primacy with ambitious Addison and crafty Corning. Indeed, the conflict was not long
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delayed, and it was little consolation to Bath to know that Addison's vic- tory had been a barren one. See, too, what a rent the envious Schuyler made !
Perhaps still further dismemberment awaits old Steuben, but there can be little doubt that Bath will continue the seat of county dignity so long as the State and its county system shall remain. The physical proportions of the county will be much less than in the period of which I have been speaking, but not its power as an instrument of civilization.
The Bath of that early day was a little country place, secluded, self- contained, provincial. The beautiful village of to-day has become in some sort a suburb of the great cities, sharing with them most of the good which they possess, but happily exempt from most that is bad, and is in touch with the entire continent.
In the transition from the Old to the New something may seem to have been lost, but it is certain that far more has been gained. There is not a boy or a girl in all this assembly to whom the whole world-and I use the expression in its largest sense-is not now open. Every original thought, every beneficent invention, every true work of art, is in some sort the property and possession of all. The barriers of time and space are disappearing so rapidly that we may well enough say that they are no longer hindrances to civilization. No one need now complain that he can- not get out to sea. If he prefers to loiter by the little mountain stream far up among the hemlocks and dream away his life there, he can do it : but the open valley is close at hand, and there are many ways thence to the broad oceans that flow round the world.
Every sound-minded and sound-hearted man loves to think he has done something worthy of grateful remembrance. It is a solace for the years that need consolation. Every good citizen loves to think that the place where he was born is illustrious, or, if not illustrious, that its record is honorable. The citizen of Bath is not without this satisfaction. The record of the past one hundred years is one of public order, of reverence for law, of sincere regard for the institutions of religion, of devotion to the duties of citizenship, of a pure and healthy social life. The second cen- tury opens with greater opportunities and greater responsibilities. You are citizens of America Majora. It will be well if your descendants gath- ering here-as we hope they will-in the Second Centennial Celebration shall be able to repeat the eulogium which of the first century we pro- nounce today.
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CHANGE OF NAME.
At the close of Mr. Rogers' oration, the Rev. Benjamin S. Sanderson arose and said :
MR. PRESIDENT-It is to be regretted that in the selection of names for the various landmarks of our beautiful village, that of our founder should have been passed over. I am authorized by the General Committee of the Centennial, to propose the following resolution, as the formal close of our public literary exercises :
Resolved, That, in grateful recognition of the well planned labors of Colonel Charles Williamson, the name of Lake Salubria be hereby changed to Lake Williamson.
The resolution was received with hearty applause, and was unani- mously carried. With the Parade in the afternoon, and the Old-Time Re- ception in the evening, both of which are fully described in the Introduc- tion, the Celebration of the First Centennial of Bath terminated.
FINIS
PART FIVE. APPENDICES.
APPENDIX A.
[We reprint here the Round Robin sent to Hon. Ansel J. McCall (vide Introduction, p. 9), adding, as a matter of permanent record, the signa- tures which were attached thereto. To obviate any captious criticism as to the omission of these signatures from the Introduction itself, the writer of that portion of the Book desires to make a personal explanation. If the Introduction is read carefully it will be found that, as tracing the growth of the Centennial spirit and the evolution of the enthusiasm which became wide-spread June 6th and 7th last, the text of the letter itself was of first and sole importance, and the mention, "numerously signed," was suf- ficient. The letter is reprinted here, and the signatures appended, as a matter of historical record. There will thus be put, in a convenient place for those who have to submit the literary program of the second Centen- nial of Bath, let us say, a list of names which is fairly representative, we suppose, of those who were prominently identified with the professional, commercial and social life of our village at the close of its first century of existence .- B. S. S.]
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